Legends of the Four Masters
by Tellemicus Sundance
Summary: The tales of two martial artists, an Amazon, and an unassuming young woman that get thrown into a century-long war. With no way home, strange and dangerous soldiers hunting them, and a kingdom overcome with shadowy corruption, how will their presences affect the outcome of a fight that was never theirs to begin with?
1. Ticket to a New World

**Legends of the Four Masters  
**By: Tellemicus Sundance  
_#01—Ticket to a New World_

It was a relatively unnatural setting that descended upon Nerima that evening. It was quiet. No screams of angry women chasing a panty-thief. No cries of rage from rivals who'd come seeking vengeance. No crashes of destruction as private, public, and government properties were smashed. And, especially, no grunts and whacks of exertion as Ranma and his father trained out in the backyard for their ritualistic evening spar. The city seemed to almost sigh in relief as it took full advantage of the respite.

For the beautiful Tendo Kasumi, it was such a fleeting peace that had become increasingly rare around her household that she couldn't help but relish in it. She was sitting in the living room of her home, absently watching a rather curious cartoon that had become very properly recently. Something about a bald kid with a blue arrow tattoo, who could also use the wind to fight, trying to save the world from an invading army of fire-using soldiers. Though it was clearly meant for children, she had to admit that it did hold a certain charm that made it interesting even for adults. Plus the ambiguous references to the Japanese and Chinese culture and architecture were welcome surprises she rather enjoyed seeing.

Next to her on the floor sat P-chan, Akane's little black piglet. Kasumi wasn't sure if it was waiting for Akane to find it, since it had a rather curious habit of always getting lost and disappearing, or if it was watching the cartoon with her because it found it interesting as well. Well, she'd have to remember to bring up to Akane later. Maybe P-chan would help her calm down from whatever had upset her earlier.

Kasumi wasn't sure what had happened this time. Her younger sister had come storming home, alone, and promptly set to work destroying every cinderblock in the backyard to vent her fury. Having seen this happen far too many times before, Kasumi knew that Akane had likely sent Ranma flying into low-earth-orbit again for some kind of perceived perversion against her or infidelity against their engagement. The random hateful shouts of 'SHAMPOO—HAH!' _Crash!_ gave Kasumi the obvious perpetrator of that infidelity, since she knew that Ranma was surprisingly loyal if only somewhat insensitive to a woman's feelings.

That had been over two hours ago and by this point, most of the family had already gone to bed. It was just Kasumi and P-chan still awake in the household now. So they were the only ones who heard the front doors open quietly as Ranma finally trudged his way inside, looking a bit downhearted, filthy, and female. Turning from the television, Kasumi stood up and walked over to greet him with a pleasant smile.

"Hello, Ranma-chan," she said. "Did Akane knock you out again?"

Ranma looked immediately affronted by the question, but after a second the redhead just sighed in exhaustion. Kasumi took that as meaning that she didn't want to talk about it. Kicking off her shoes, Ranma-chan passed her as she quietly said, "I'm gonna take a bath."

Kasumi nodded, heading quickly into the kitchen to put the dinner leftovers she'd saved for him into the microwave. Once done, she hurried back to the television to watch the cartoon again, only to be faintly annoyed to see that a commercial had come on during her distraction. By the time that Ranma had finished his bath and changed into a fresh pair of clothes, the cartoon had ended and a new one had started. That was something that Kasumi actually enjoyed about the show, it was so popular that they'd started playing it as 'double features', two or three episodes in a row.

"What'cha watching?" Ranma asked absentmindedly, now as a boy again as he headed to where the pleasant smells of reheated dinner were coming from.

"Some new cartoon that's come out," Kasumi answered, giggling quietly at one of the funny remarks the dark-skinned boy in blue clothes made. He was always making sarcastic jokes that were very funny. "It's very popular these days."

Walking into the room with his plate of dinner, Ranma took a seat nearby to watch as he ate his dinner. It wasn't long, Kasumi noticed, before he was equally enthralled at the show. But, knowing him, he was probably observing the fighting styles, the various air, fire, and water attacks that were being done, and trying to decide if it'd be worth his time to experiment with them later.

"That's Baguazhang, with some Xingyiquan," Ranma said, his eyes glued to the screen. "Northern Shaolin Kung Fu for those fire dudes. And the Yang style of T'ai Chi Ch'uan for the water girl. Those are Chinese martial arts!"

"Oh?" Kasumi asked, not at all surprised that he figured which styles were being used. Nearby, P-chan grunted almost in derision.

"Airen?" a familiar voice called from outside, catching all three beings' attentions as the purple haired Chinese Amazon came walking in, uninvited as per the norm.

"What'cha want, Shampoo?" Ranma asked, reflexively standing up in preparation to flee or fight as the situation needed. However, as the girl came into view, it seemed pretty obvious that she wasn't here to cause trouble again. Her face was downcast and slightly remorseful, a stark contrast to her usual bubbly good cheer.

"Shampoo come to say sorry," Shampoo said looking up at Ranma pleadingly. "Shampoo not know Violent Girl have bad day again."

Seeing Ranma slightly off balance, Kasumi put on an understanding serene smile as she spoke up, "That's alright, Shampoo. I'm sure Ranma's used to this by now. But it was very thoughtful to come and apologize." She looked somewhat pointedly at Ranma, "Right, Ranma-kun?"

Figuratively caught between a rock and hard place, Ranma just put a slightly strained grin. "Yeah, it's no problem. Besides, Akane going ballistic like that helps build up the endurance against pain, right?" Now his strained grin had morphed into his classic cocky smirk.

Shampoo instantly lit up like a Christmas tree, jumping up and hugging Ranma despite his protests. After a moment, Shampoo restrained herself and drew back, her hands drifting into her pockets. When she did this, her eyes suddenly lit up again as though she were just remembering something. "Ranma? Shampoo have something for you!"

"What is it?" Ranma asked, trying and failing to not show his sudden unease. It was a proven fact that whenever Shampoo came to him with gifts, they almost always turned out to be cursed magical items that caused great big headaches for him and everyone else involved. Even Kasumi felt herself tense up as the realization hit her a few short moments after Ranma and P-chan.

Either ignoring or not noticing her beloved's sudden unease, Shampoo extracted something small, shiny, and golden from her pocket and held it out triumphantly. "This be the Golden Ticket of Urban Legends!" Shampoo declared happily. All she got from her audience was a series of blank-faced stares. It took her only a few seconds to realize none of them had ever heard of her item before, causing her to groan in annoyance. Didn't they notice or hear about _anything_ that wasn't related to martial arts?!

After a moment to recollect herself, she held out the Golden Ticket for Ranma to examine. "It be a special movie ticket that let up to five people watch any movie anywhere for free!"

"Isn't that what a normal ticket does?" Kasumi couldn't help asking.

"No, not this one!" Shampoo quickly answered, shaking her head in response. "It be special ticket because it work at _any_ theater _anywhere_ in the world! All that's needed done to activate it is to break it into two."

"Activate it?" Ranma asked cautiously, holding the ticket with exceeding carefulness in case it's magic might somehow negatively affect him. "What's that mean?"

"In order to get into movie without paying, silly," Shampoo laughed lightly at Ranma's almost fearful handling of the said ticket.

"Is that all it does?" he asked, still not convinced. Since when had magic ever been anything but trouble for him? He was 100% sure that there was some kind of unknown and dangerous curse linked to this seemingly harmless ticket in some way. That's how it _always_ worked with him.

"Of course!" Shampoo said, now starting to get annoyed at Ranma's paranoia. "Why it do more than that? This is 'I-am-sorry' gift to Ranma. No want to curse Airen when trying to say sorry!"

After a few moments, Ranma took a deep breath and visible forced his paranoia down. Though Shampoo had been no end of headaches ever since he'd first fought her on that log in China, she had never been anything less than honest in her intentions and actions. He'd give her the benefit of the doubt this time.

Kasumi stood up and took the Golden Ticket from Ranma to examine it, P-chan following closely at her heels with its big eyes locked almost hungrily upon the ticket. Looking down at the golden paper, Kasumi looked at it closely. Despite its unique coloring, it seemed to be just a classic theater ticket with the words 'Admits up to 5' printed down the center of it. She couldn't see or feel anything out of place, be it normal or magical.

"Seems relatively normal, Ranma-kun," Kasumi said as she handed it back towards Ranma.

That was when everything went wrong, as things usually tended to go. As Ranma took hold of the ticket, P-chan suddenly took a powerful jump upwards, aiming for the ticket. The sudden attack caught all of them by surprise, but Ranma was still able to keep his grip on the ticket as the piglet bit down on it. The two of them fought over the ticket for a brief moment. Well, Ranma began flailing the ticket and piglet in the air with loud yells of anger at it while P-chan was trying to wrench it out of Ranma's grasp. Something had to give…and something did.

The ticket out got ripped into even halves clear down the center. The flailing Ranma had been doing sent P-chan flying through the air, where it landed with surprising ease on the floor beside the television.

"Why you little pig!" Ranma was ranting furiously, his fists clenching tightly in his anger as he began advancing on the animal. "I'm gonna make _pork chops_ of you, _bacon breath!_"

The ensuing fight between Ranma and P-chan was suddenly cut off as they noticed something strange happening. Two bright points blinding golden light lit up, one from the ticket clenched in Ranma's fist and the other clenched in P-chan's mouth. Before any of them could do anything more than stare in surprise, a blinding golden void suddenly filled the air around them. When the blinding light vanished only a split-second later, so had the four of them.

* * *

(**Author's Note**) The next story that's come to me in a whim. Let's hope that I can make something of it. I admit that my knowledge of the _Ranma_ characters is fairly limited, so I hope all of you who have better knowledge will help correct me when I make mistakes in that regard.


	2. The Arrival

**Legends of the Four Masters  
**By: Tellemicus Sundance  
_#02—The Arrival_

The sun had long since finished setting, casting its last golden rays over the horizon as it dipped ever lower behind the mountains. Now the blues, purples, and blacks of night were firmly coloring the skies above. All was quiet and peaceful in the dry riverbed that the small group of teenagers had chosen as their campsite. The two Water Tribe siblings were tucked away in their shared tent. The little Earth Kingdom heiress was nestled comfortably in her bed of dirt. And the Air Nomad was lying upon his beloved Sky Bison's foreleg.

That was when the silence of the night was disrupted. Thanks to her unique Earthbending talents and deep awareness of the earth, Toph Beifong was the first to notice the approach of something large, heavy, and incredibly fast.

"There's something coming towards us!" she shouted, climbing out of her earth tent and running over towards her companions.

"What is it?" Aang asked, sitting up from Appa's leg as the siblings stuck their heads out of the tent. But even as he said it, he too felt something rushing towards them. The sheer magnitude of it caused him to stumble slightly as his eyes widened. "Yeah, you're right."

Crouching down and placing her hand on the earth to get a better feel of the thing, Toph explained it as best she could. "It feels like an avalanche but…also not an avalanche."

"Are you sure that's what you feel?" Aang couldn't help asking. What he felt coming seemed more like a stampede of ostrich-horses to his spiritual senses, which felt incredibly odd even to him.

"Your powers of perception are _frightening_," Sokka said, his sleepiness making him somewhat more irritably sarcastic than normal.

"Should we leave?" Katara asked.

"Better safe than sorry," Aang said, his unease at his strange sense starting to worry him. Even if Toph didn't know what was coming towards them, he felt the odds of it being something to do with the Fire Nation were pretty high.

As the group was quickly packing up the small amount of materials used in their campsite, something happened. A sudden, blinding flash of golden light lit up the clearing around them, causing Aang, Katara, and Sokka to recoil in surprise and slight pain as the light hit their eyes. Only Toph was spared that pain, ironically thanks to her natural blindness. However, she was also the first one to notice when four bodies suddenly landed upon the ground in graceless heaps.

"What's going on? Who's there?!" Toph demanded, assuming a basic defensive stance as she turned towards where the strangers had landed.

"YOU'RE SO DEAD!" a loud, unfamiliar male voice yelled out furiously as one of the bodies quickly stood up and rushed over towards one of the others.

"YOU DIDN'T DESERVE IT, RANMA!" another furious male voice yelled out as he jumped to his feet and responded to the incoming attack. Though Toph couldn't see them, she could easily track them through their stamping feet and heavy stances as they clashed with one another in a positively ferocious fistfight.

"Oh my," said a woman's voice from nearby as she sat up. "Where are we? What's going on?"

"That's what we want to know!" Sokka demanded loudly as he quickly advanced on the two females, his machete already raised threateningly. "Who are you guys?! Fire Nation?!"

Before the first girl could answer, the second one instantly jumped up and slid forward to meet their attacker, drawing a club of some kind from somewhere. With one almost casual swing, she sent the machete flying from Sokka's hands. With another casual smack, she slammed the club into his stomach and sent him flying backwards where he mercifully landed in the soft, fuzzy mattress that was Appa.

"Hey, come on, everyone, stop fighting!" Aang yelled, trying to restore peace and order unsuccessfully.

"PREPARE TO DIE, SAOTOME!" the second boy yelled, dropping his fist to the ground where he landed a powerful single-fingered jab. Then, much to Toph's personal shock, the land just in front of him literally exploded into a deadly spray of shrapnel and rocks. Seeing the angle of which the rock shards were flying, Toph quickly stomped her foot and raised her arms up, raising a wall of rock in front of her and the collective group and shielding them all from the shrapnel.

"Oh my!" the woman said in shock, having witnessed the entire event with wide eyes as she raised a dainty hand to her face. Though Toph couldn't see it, the woman's eyes suddenly lit up in recognition.

"EVERYONE, STOP FIGHTING!" Aang yelled, bringing his staff down and launching a powerful wind strike that forced the two fighting boys apart. Holding out his staff in a threatening manner, Aang glared at the two when he saw that he finally had their attentions. "THAT'S ENOUGH!"

"Don't get involved, baldy," one of them snapped, not lowering his aggressive stance in the least. "You don't know what you're up against!"

"Well, isn't this interesting?" yet another unfamiliar female voice said. But unlike the first four, this new voice had a cultured but mocking and cold ring to it. "Here we are, out for a bit of night hunting and we find a pretty light show and some circus freaks to go with it."

Everyone turned to face the new voice and found three teenaged girls riding a trio of mongoose-dragons. The girl in the center of the trio had a slight sneer of triumph on her face as she reveled in being able to take her prey by surprise.

"What the heck are those things?" one of the boys quietly asked in a confused voice. Then in a louder voice, he said, "If you know what's good you, lady, you won't get involved here!"

The girl frowned. "I am Azula, Princess of the Fire Nation. _No one_ gives _me_ orders!" To further accentuate her point, the Fire Princess launched a large wave of fire at the one who'd dared speak to _her_ like a nobody. The fire wave caused both him and his opponent to dodge and jump away to safety. In the split second of time it took for surprise of her identity to flash across the faces of Aang, Katara, and Sokka, and for confusion to set in for Toph and the new arrivals, Azula had jumped out of her saddle and launched another powerful blast of fire towards the center of the group.

In a flash, one of the boys sprinted across the gap between them in a burst of raw speed that only Toph could vaguely track. He came to a skidding halt in front of Azula, crouched low, before springing upwards and landing a powerful uppercut into the Princess's abdomen. The sheer power of the blow sent her flying up and back, far over the mongoose-dragon she'd just been riding, much to the great shock of the Avatar group who were barely able to keep up with the faint flickers of movement he'd left in his trail.

"I told you to butt out!" the boy shouted at her as she came crashing down to the earth.

Then, in a much slower burst of speed, the other boy was upon him, shouting out, "Don't turn your back on me, Ranma! DIE!"

Skipping to the side, the newly-named Ranma easily evaded his slower opponent, dancing out and around the boy as he dodged his wild and angry punches. "You're really starting to get on my nerves now, Ryoga!"

Despite herself, Toph couldn't help but notice something a little strange. The boy who was dodging was doing so in a rather peculiar manner. He was clearly the faster of the two and was leading his anger-blinded opponent by the nose, but he was doing so by traveling in an ever-tightening circle. '_No_,' she realized. '_Not a circle, a spiral. What's he up to?_'

No sooner had that question passed her mind than did it get answered. Upon reaching the centermost point of the spiral, Ranma launched a powerful uppercut into Ryoga's stomach. As he did so, a sudden powerful gust of wind shot to life around him, launching Ryoga high into the air as a literal tornado formed from the Ranma's fist. "Hiryou Shouten Ha!"

As the tornado died down, sending Ryoga crashing into one of the nearby trees, the Avatar group and the three girls all openly gawked at Ranma. What he had just done should've been impossible since it was believed that, aside from Aang, all of the Airbenders had been killed more than a hundred years ago. But this boy didn't look anything like an Airbender! Aang knew that Airbenders of old had kept to fairly strict and standard dress codes, varied only by their ranks in the order and their personal levels of Airbending mastery and enlightenment. Ranma had neither the wardrobe, the personality, nor classic monk-like aloofness that all Airbenders once had.

Suffice to say, it threw them all for a loop.

It only took Azula a moment to recover from her surprise and considerable pain in the gut. She didn't waste time trying to understand minor questions like 'how' or 'where'. All she cared about was that she now knew that there was somehow a new Airbender roaming the lands and it was now her duty to uphold the Fire Nation pride by exterminating the leaf-blower.

But she had already discovered three things about this new Airbender that already told her that he was a far different breed of fighter than the common Bender. He was unbelievably fast, so fast that even her well-trained eyes could barely keep up with him when he'd sprinted up to attack her. He was ridiculously strong for such a lithe body build, probably even stronger than most common Earthbender men who prided themselves on their immense statures and physical strength. That combination of sheer speed and hidden strength no doubt also said that he was quite agile and evasive, finding a balance between the two which was a hard thing for even the best of fighters to accomplish. Combined with his Airbender wind attacks, all those things added together made for an incredibly difficult opponent to face at either close- or long-range. Thus, she'd need to attack even faster than he could respond in order to put him down and there was only one attack in her vast arsenal that was up to that job.

An almost arrogant sneer crossed her lips as those thoughts shot through her mind as the comparable speeds of lightning. Setting her stance wide and strong as she emptied herself of all mental and emotional conflicts she may have been feeling, Azula felt the yin and yang energies inside of her and began to process of separating them. The only warning that the outside world had of the building storm inside of her were the streaks of lightning that began sparking off her body.

Ranma instantly noticed the change that was taking place around the girl he'd knocked back. If he were honest with himself, he wasn't surprised that she was still standing. While strong, that uppercut he'd given her wasn't meant to be a knock-out blow. But what he was surprised about was that she was apparently now trailing lightning from her body as she went through what was clearly a very advanced and complicated kata that he vaguely recognized as another minor variant of the Shaolin style. So, she was gonna try another weird chi-attack? She must've assumed that he hadn't dealt with electric-shock attacks before.

A grin that almost matched Azula's sneer crossed Ranma's face as he stood upon the balls of his feet and prepared to meet the attack head-on, just to prove a point.

However, his subtle movement and lack of evasion hadn't gone unnoticed by anyone. All of the Avatar gang quickly realized that he was planning to rush the lightning attack, likely ignorant of just how deadly such an attack could be.

"NO, DON'T DO IT!" Aang yelled, just as Azula was completing her final motions. The attack was imminent. "_DODGE IT!_"

Time slowed down.

Ranma glanced back at the young bald boy, trying to decide whether to be offended by the boy's lack of faith in his skills or be curious what he was so afraid of. However, the considerable volume of the yell and the genuine concern on not only the boy's face but those of his three friends quickly told Ranma that they were all serious. Then he had a sudden epiphany. They had dealt with this girl before. They must've known what her skills and abilities were. They would know whether to dodge certain attacks or not.

Just as he was turning to face the girl again, she thrust her hand forward and sent an actual _lightning bolt_ flying from her two fingertips, her face gleaming with sadistic pride in the lightning's glow. Pure reflex, ingrained martial skill, and powerful muscles all melded into a single entity as his basest human instinct to survive jumped to the forefront. Before the lightning had even traveled half of the relatively short distance between them, Ranma had flung his body into the air, trying to roll away from the deadly attack. But even with his superhuman reflexes and instinctive dodge, he still wasn't entirely able to dodge.

The lightning managed to clip his body as it passed, sending a grazing trail of electric agony shooting through his abdomen. The lightning bolt carried on past him and crashed into the gully ditch's earthen wall where it exploded spectacularly. What had started as a frantic but still graceful dodge turned into a graceless collapse as Ranma fell the ground, writhing in agony as random jolts of electricity played havoc throughout his body. Though, to his credit, Ranma was able to control himself well enough to not cry out in pain as he crashed and thrashed.

Azula broke out into loud, sadistic laughter at her triumph. Sure, she had missed most of her target because he was even faster than she'd anticipated, but even a grazing hit was a still a hit and he was down either way.

"AIREN!" the purple haired stranger yelled in distress and surprise. But rather than rush to his aid as many of them thought she'd have done, she instead turned and glared hatefully at Azula. "You hurt _my_ _Ranma! I'M GONNA __**KILL YOU!**_" With no other words, she drew her bonbori and rushed the Fire Princess to make good on her promise.

As Azula casually turned to face the attacking purple-haired freak, Ty Lee finally jumped into action. She landed just ahead of Shampoo and crouched down, standing lightly on her feet. As she'd guessed, Shampoo tried to knock her away with her bonbori rather than face her. Ty Lee dodged and slid up behind her, jabbing the girl lightly along her upraised left arm, causing the limb to go numb and dropping the heavy weapon to the ground. The bonbori crashing to the ground hard enough to actually _shake_ the earth caused Ty Lee to reflexively jump away in surprise. Just how heavy were those things?!

Shampoo took that split second to look closely at her arm and determine what was wrong. All the girl with the braided hair did was lightly jab her arm in certain places, rendering it numb and unresponsive. It didn't take long for Shampoo to realize that the girl had used shiatsu against her, hitting her pressure points to disrupt her movement.

In a burst of anger, Shampoo spun around and, using her chi to empower her one good arm, swung her bonbori at the jumpy girl. That was where something strange happened. Although the girl dodged the bonbori, she wasn't able to dodge the large rock that got ripped out of the earth and sent flying at her at incredible speeds. The rock slammed into her pelvis due to her positioning in the air, which otherwise would've been sufficient enough to dodge the bonbori. The unexpected attack caught her by surprise and knocked her tumbling back through the air, though she was still able to catch herself and turn her fall into a roll as she hit the ground.

"So, you're an Earthbender?" a bland and very bored sounding voice asked. Shampoo turned and glared at the third girl, not letting the strange geographic event bother her just yet since she was still engaged in a fight. "And here I thought this would be challenging."

Before Shampoo could properly reply, the girl suddenly drew a large handful of shuriken and daggers from her sleeves and hurled them at Shampoo. Shampoo just sent the girl her own bored expression as she casually waved her bonbori through the air and deflected all of the fast-incoming weapons with incredible ease.

"Is that it?" she asked in her own best impression of the girl's voice.

Ty Lee couldn't restrain the giggle that crept out of her, despite the throbbing pain in her abdomen. "That's actually pretty good! I've been trying for years to imitate Mai like that!"

"Alright, show's over!" Toph yelled from the side, reminding the three Fire Nation girls that they still hadn't caught their prey. "Time to go, boy and girls!"

The earth below Shampoo and Ranma suddenly jutted upwards with such incredible force that it sent the two of them flying through the air. After only a moment of air travel, they landed on the relative safety of Appa's saddle where the rest of the Avatar group already was waiting. They had used the distraction provided by the newcomers to hurriedly break camp and prepare to leave, with help from Kasumi.

With a great grunting growl, Appa kicked off the ground, beating the air with his large tail. Though unintentional, Appa's tail created a huge blast of wind knocked each of the girls off their feet momentarily because of the unexpectedness of the attack. As they were flying away, Sokka couldn't help asking a question that was bugging him. "Where's that other guy who got sent flying?"

* * *

Hanging upside in a tree near the clearing by his ankle that was wedged between two branches, Ryoga let out a furious yell, "DAMN YOU, RANMA!" Fire literally spewing from his mouth and burning the leaves and branches around him as he raged.

* * *

**By: animefan29**

As Appa reached a safe cruising altitude, the sky bison leveled off but kept up a slighter faster than normal pace at the urging of his partner. Once level and stable Katara moved towards the back of the saddle towards the injured strangers, water skin in hand, only to be blocked by the purple-haired girl, glare on her face and good arm holding her weapon as she kneeled protectively over the injured boy.

"Please, I can help," said Katara in a voice meant to sooth the girl. "I'm a trained healer."

Shampoo glared suspiciously at Katara, and then sent a worried glance to Ranma. With her own medical knowledge Shampoo knew Ranma's burns were bad, with potential lasting nerve damage if he wasn't treated. But she didn't want to leave her to-be-husband's care to a stranger. Though, in the blue-wearing girl's favor, she hadn't attacked them like the girls in pink and red back there.

With reluctance Shampoo moved to the side, allowing Katara access to Ranma. Katara gave a brief nod of thanks as she positioned herself next to Ranma, and what she did next surprised Shampoo. Instead of pulling out burn balm and medical gauze, she made some subtle motions with her hand, drawing water out of the skin and making it float above Ranma.

'_Magic water?_' Shampoo questioned in her mind. That seemed to be the case as the water started glowing and pressed itself against Ranma's injuries at Katara's manipulations. Almost immediately, Ranma relaxed. The pained expression on his face easing as the water went to work.

From the front of the saddle, Kasumi watched with both relief and amazement. Relief that Ranma was being healed and amazement that she was literally in one of her favorite TV shows. _'But how did we end up here?_' she thought before it clicked in her head. '_The ticket?_' Pulling her ticket out of her pocket, she saw that it looked the same as when Shampoo first revealed them, not even torn in two like what had happened to it earlier. Though she had long ago learned that with magic, appearance counted for very little.

"So," with that word Kasumi was pulled from her musings as Sokka addressed her. "Now that we've escaped the crazy Fire Nation girls, would you mind answering a few questions? Like—" Sokka pointed dramatically at her and practically shouted the question. "_Who are you and what was that light!?_"

Toph beside him grimaced at the sudden volume increase. "Geez, Sokka, what's with the shouting?" she asked as she dug a finger into the ear closest to Sokka.

"Sokka gets noisy when he's paranoid," explained Aang from his position in the driver's seat.

"Oh, that makes sense."

Sokka gave the two a withering stare, or it would've been if either bender could be intimidated by Sokka. "How am I paranoid? You both saw the light!"

"No, I didn't," said Toph with annoyance.

"Er…Sensed them arrive? It was big, flashy, noisy, and the next thing we know we have the Fire Nation's latest hunting party at our campsite. We don't know who they are, what they want, or whose side their on!"

"They got hurt fighting 'Princess' Azula and her cohorts," Toph pointed out.

"True," Sokka conceded, "But before you joined us, Toph, we learned the hard way that just because someone is the enemy of the Fire Nation, that does not make them our friend."

Toph raised an eyebrow and looked ready to question him when Kasumi spoke up.

"Um, I can answer your questions, but…" Here she hesitated as she sought the best words. "You aren't likely to believe me."

"I'll be the judge of that," stated Toph as she crawled in front of Kasumi and promptly placed a hand to her chest.

Cue synchronized exclamations of "Oh my!" and "Toph!" followed by a blushing Sokka. Aang's attention was solidly fixed on the sky ahead, which prompted him to ask, "What are you doing?"

"I'm feeling her heart beat," she explained. "When people lie, their heartbeat fluctuates and I can tell when that happens."

"Oh, so the reason you have your hand—"

"Look, normally I can feel it through the earth but Appa's own heart is drowning things out. _OK?!_"

Sometimes even Sokka knew when to back off. "OK."

Over in the back, Shampoo watched in amusement as Katara just looked annoyed as she focused on healing.

Toph turned her attention back to Kasumi. "Now, let's start easy. Who are you and how did you get here?"

And so Kasumi explained. She was concise and to the point: telling the gang only their names, that they were from a completely different realty, that the world they were in now was just a "moving picture show" back home, and that it had been magic movie tickets that brought them here. At the end of it, Sokka and Aang were back to staring at her, and Katara would have too if not for her current job.

Finally Sokka said, "That is…_RIDCULUS!_"

"But she's not lying," said Toph with finality. "She's telling the truth."

"But come on! Other worlds? Moving picture shows of our lives? Magic 'movie tickets' that takes a person from one location to someplace else entirely?"

"Actually," Began Aang, "That last one isn't too different from when Hei Bai kidnapped you. He took you while we were in the forest, but you returned at the village gates."

"That's just Avatar stuff, that doesn't count," Sokka grumbled, though it was clear he was backing off, if sulking slightly.

"Let's just land and get some sleep," Katara suggested, finally finishing her work of healing Ranma's injuries. "Things make more sense after a good night's rest."

"Yeah, let's do that," Sokka agreed, still pouting.

Spotting a good spot to land and make camp in a small clearing next to a river, Aang maneuvered Appa down gently, leaving slight amounts of shedding fur in the passing winds behind them to mark their passage.

* * *

(**Author's Note**) Colossal thanks to **animefan29** for not only reviewing this chapter but, as you've seen, writing out the 'first contact' scene. I truly and utterly despise those scenes since they are usually poorly written and they all always follow the same generic path.

But now that that's out of the way, time to discover just what new things are taking place and how they'll likely affect the overall plotline of _Avatar_. Hope you all enjoyed this chapter as much as I and **animefan29** did writing it.


End file.
